


and with a broken wing, he still sings

by musicaldaydreamer



Category: Pokemon Reborn
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Team Meteor sucks and Taka needs a hug, implied/referenced pokémon abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-06 23:07:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19072534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicaldaydreamer/pseuds/musicaldaydreamer
Summary: By the time you meet the person you've been ordered to stop, you have almost forgotten what hope is.(Contains spoilers for up to and including the Water Treatment Center.)





	and with a broken wing, he still sings

By the time you meet the person you've been ordered to stop, you have almost forgotten what hope is.  
  
They told you about them, briefly. A group of young adults who interfered with Meteor's plans at the Factory, and then again in Obsidia. A few of Reborn's Gym leaders, the brother of one of them, a student of Apophyll, and a stranger. You were warned that any or all of them were likely to try to interfere with the PULSE in Malchous Forest, and your orders were clear: stop them. Send them home with their metaphorical tails between their legs. So you go. You wait.

A single figure scrambles through the brush. Their lack of green hair and the fact you've never seen them before suggests that this is the stranger; you regard them curiously. They're going to fight, you can see it in their eyes, and years of practice reminds you, in the back of your mind, not to betray how much you don't want to be here.

But there's no one else _here_ , and your years of practice can't tune out the sounds of pain from the Tangrowth that rumble in your soul. So you chat with the stranger, explaining the dangers of the machines. You all but ask them to stop you.

It almost looks easy. You hoped it would be, took advantage of the ambiguity of your orders to only use two Pokemon apart from the PULSE. But the stranger has a Kricketune that sings as he fights, and between him and their Brionne the battle is over quickly. You casually mention that Meteor has plans in Beryl before you leave. There's nobody to hear you, nobody to stop you, and hey, maybe this stranger can put a wrench in Meteor's plans before someone puts a stop to them.  


What you don't expect is for them to keep _winning_.  


But they do, in Beryl and again on Azurine after that (and you hadn't even expected them to _be_ there, even if you'd _hoped_ it) and then again on Mt. Pyrous. Your father tries to make an example of them, sends out his Garchomp, and they _stand up to him_. It's barely a win, scraped by, but you realize- this stranger isn't messing around, they're going to keep fighting. And the part of you that's been rooting for their success _cheers_ even as the rest of you is horrified, of how your father will react and of what happened to the Gym Leader and her Medicham.

(That horrifies _everyone_ present, except your father, and you try to put on your faithful old robe of apathy but it doesn't fit quite as well as it used to.)  


You don't see them after that, for weeks, but you hear plenty. There's an entire resistance now, Gym Leaders and children wronged by that creep of a doctor, people left floating in the wreckage of Meteor's attacks now coming together to strike back. The stranger is there, always fighting, always trying to save people. And with every story you hear, of them and all the others, you find it harder and harder not to smile.  
And harder and harder to keep pretending.  
But- you have to, right? There's no other option.  
  


When you're sent to keep an eye on the Stopple and instead find Amaria, unconscious and wearing the Sapphire Bracelets, you find your apathy won't fit at all anymore. You have some of the Aces treat her wounds, telling them you have the Bracelets now, there's no need to cause more pain to her. And you wait, and you _pray_ that someone comes.

Someone does- Titania, exhausted and furious and _murderous_. You keep out of her way until you hear her yelling at someone- and you look, and it's the stranger, come to rescue her and Amaria. You taunt the pair lightly, but even Titania sees through it; you can't stop yourself from helping them try to reach their friend. And she's abrasive, and rude, and bloodthirsty but she's _poking at all the right cracks_ and you're struggling more and more just to hold yourself together and the stranger just stands there so quietly. (They don't join Titania in attacking the grunts, you notice. It distracts you from your struggle temporarily. But not for long enough.)

You're going to be punished, because you let the Leaders and the stranger and the Bracelets leave, because the PULSE was defeated on your watch, and because you _helped_ them so recklessly you're pretty sure the Meteors at the facility have to have caught on. You're going to be punished, and you aren't sorry (you're sorry you're sorry you're _so so_ sorry but not for that) and you can go on pretending it's all fine but you can't pretend to _yourself_ anymore, and that's terrifying. So by the time you let the rescue party catch up to you you're more or less desperate. Titania yelling at you can't break you any more than you already are. So you tell her where her friend is, you give her the Bracelets, and you wait for her to leave.

And then you turn to the stranger, who hasn't been a stranger for a very long time. And just as you've done all your life, you leave your fate in someone else's hands.

 

The difference is that this time, _you're_ the one making that choice.


End file.
